A slow burn
Afraid to Die is the fourth in the Selena Alvarez/Regan Pescoli series, which focuses on two female police detectives in the town of Grizzly Falls, Montana. I’m amazed
that anyone still lives in this town. They have suffered several serial killers in the last few years, but people still seem to carry out their daily lives there--including several women who go missing at the beginning of this story.
The focus in Afraid to Die is mostly on Selena Alvarez.
Aspects of her past return to influence the investigation into the missing women, some of whom turn up murdered. I assume that Pescoli’s story
is told more in the previous books; in this story, we learn a little about her but not enough to flesh out her character. In fact, I didn’t find her very appealing.
Alvarez, on the other hand, comes across well, and the romance between her and a private investigator
is well-handled.
I enjoyed reading Afraid to Die despite its rather slow pace.
The bulk of the book is over before anything significant seems to happen. Seeing what the detectives
are actually doing in the murder investigation isn't easy. They don’t seem to do much detecting, and it feels like the only reason they make any progress
is thanks to the coincidences that are part of the story.
This is a reasonable read, and I liked the central male and female characters.
Still, it is less gripping than one might expect from a serial killer murder story.